The Naming of Names
by Bad Faery
Summary: Belle cares how he looks.
1. Chapter 1

Rush spends more time on his appearance these days, actually taking time to shave on a regular basis. Belle likes him clean-shaven. She's never said anything, but he's noticed how much more willing she is to cuddle when he isn't bristly. It still seems like a waste of time to him, but if a stubble-free chin is what his Belle likes, that is what she will have.

She prefers his white button-down to any of his other clothes, not that she has many choices. She'll curl up against his chest when he wears that, toying with his buttons. In his brown shirt and waistcoat, he's Nick to her, but in the button-down, she calls him love. It's worth the extra effort of keeping it clean.

Their best nights are when he manages to coordinate the two- presenting himself clean-shaven in her favorite shirt. She can't get enough of him on those nights, their mouths fused together like oxygen is a meaningless afterthought.

He loves her like that, so wild and hungry for him like he always is for her. Her voice slurs with passion in those moments, 'Rush' coming out muddy and indistinct at the end, sounding more like 'Rum.'

He doesn't care what she calls him as long as she doesn't leave.


	2. Chapter 2

Her husband used to call her dearie.

Rush isn't sure where he obtained this information. The subject of Belle's husband is one on which he is torn, both wanting to know everything and nothing about the other man- the ghost. So he lets the little details come to him and guards them jealously once he has them but never seeks them out himself.

Still once he has the information there's no point in not using it. One night when he is clean-shaven and well-dressed and Belle's tongue is in his mouth, he grinds against her the way that makes her moan and tears his lips away from hers to hiss in her ear, "You like that, dearie?"

She goes utterly still in his arms, and for a moment Rush thinks he's gone too far. Then she's yanking on his hair and kissing him like she's about to die and coming harder than he's ever seen her come before.

They do it three times that night, and afterward she clings to him like she loves him.

The word is a powerful weapon, and he uses it sparingly. If she starts to think about it and realizes he's doing it on purpose, it will distract her. It will remind her who he isn't. He'll be Nick again, and she'll kiss him gently and squeeze his hand, and never burrow in his arms like she trusts him to protect her from everything. He'll be Nick, and she won't love him anymore.

He'll gladly be her Rum if she'll just be his Belle


	3. Chapter 3

He hasn't shaved in days, therefore Belle does not sit down on his lap when she comes to visit him in the console room. He does have the white shirt on, so she comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his shoulders, playing with his buttons as she kisses his hair, and that's good enough for him. He covers her hands with his and nuzzles back into her, needing the comfort of her touch. It's been a rotten week- month, year, _life_- and he wants to forget, just for a little while.

"Let's go to bed," he whispers, lifting her hand to his mouth and trying not to let her feel his stubble as he kisses it.

"Not tonight, love," she murmurs into his hair, and if she's calling him that, there's hope, and he needs her so badly it hurts.

"I'll shave," he offers recklessly, turning to face her, and she shakes her head.

"I have duty-" she stops herself before she can finish, looking at him like she's never seen him before, and he realizes what he said.

"Oh, Nick..." she breathes, her face falling, and he grabs for her hands when she steps back.

"I just thought... you might not like whisker burn," he tries to play it off, but the dawning horror in her eyes tells him that he failed.

She stops trying to pull away, but her face is stricken when she asks, "Did I say it out loud? Did I say his...?"

He clutches her hands tighter, trying to pull her back, but she's farther away than he can reach right now. "It doesn't matter."

"Did you know the whole time?" She sounds anguished, and he shakes his head.

"I don't _mind_, Belle." It's a lie. He minds. Of course he minds. He wants her with _him_, not with her ghost, but if he has to choose, he wants her in his arms and happy. "You're worth it."

Tears spill down her cheeks, and she pulls out of his grasp before he can wipe them away. "Oh, Nick, I'm so _sorry_."

It's the last thing he wants to hear, but before he can say anything else, she's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

After that, she no longer visits him in the console room and avoids him whenever he seeks her out. Occasionally he manages to catch her eye across a room or down a corridor and she smiles at him so sadly that he wants to kill something.

She lets Mandy borrow her body with the stones, and Rush knows what's going to happen before the exchange is even made. It might be Mandy he's kissing, but those are Belle's lips against his. That's Belle's skin he's tasting, and it's been so long since she let him do this that he can barely slow down.

Then he's in her, and she's so hot and tight, and he loves her so much that he can't breathe. He gasps for air, moans her name, and her blue eyes go huge and shocked with betrayal.

Mandy shoves him off of her and wraps her arms around herself like he struck her. "You were thinking about _her_?"

"I… she…" There's a rational explanation for this somewhere that will let them continue what they were doing, but his head is still swimming, and he can't think of it.

"All this time I thought it was about your wife, but it wasn't, was it?" Mandy stares down at her hands, and Belle's eyes are filled with tears. "It was _her_."

"I'm sorry," he rasps, and it might be the worst possible thing to say. Mandy gets off the bed and starts pulling clothes back on.

"If you want her, you can have _her_. I won't be a substitute. I'm better than that." She's hurt and angry, and he can't blame her. Still a small selfish part of him thinks that if she really loved him, she'd give him what he needs. He's willing to do it for Belle.

Their conversations are limited to work from that point on, and even that hurts because it's Belle glaring at him. He uses Mandy's name almost constantly when he speaks to her, but it doesn't help.


	5. Chapter 5

He's sitting in the observation room and not observing a damned thing, just staring blankly at the stars and trying to feel small and insignificant because if he can do that, maybe the heartache will become insignificant too.

He doesn't love Mandy; Belle doesn't love him, and it seems none of them are capable of giving the others what they want. It shouldn't matter all the way out here. He has work to do, the mysteries of the Ancients to discover, but he's just so fucking _tired_.

The sofa cushion dips under someone else's weight, and it takes him a minute to register that Belle is beside him, looking at him like she's deciding whether or not to buy. He looks like hell. He hasn't shaved in two weeks, and he's wearing the wrong clothes. He can't do anything about that, but he fumbles for his glasses, and her hand catches his wrist as he tries to pull them off.

Her touch burns, and he sucks in a breath, but she doesn't let go. "Leave them on."

He doesn't know what to say, what to do as she straddles his lap, sitting back on his knees and just looking at him. The position is curiously chaste for all that he's between her legs, and Rush isn't sure where to put his hands. Hesitantly he rests them on her waist, and she smiles at him.

"Nick," she whispers, her fingers tracing the side of his face, his bearded chin, and it's all he can do not to lean into that touch. "Tell me something about you."

He doesn't even think about what he's going to say, just starts babbling. He tells her about his father, growing up in Glasgow and never fitting in even at Oxford. He tries to stop before he tells her about Gloria, but by that point the words are a tidal wave and there's no holding them back.

At some point Belle moves to hold him, and he rests his head on her shoulder as her lips stray along his cheekbone. There's not an inch of space between their bodies, and he's too grateful to be in her arms to even be aroused as she sighs his name into his hair.


	6. Chapter 6

He worries when he breaks his glasses. He's functional without them, if more prone to headaches, but Belle likes him with his glasses on. If she's around, he wears them even if he doesn't need them, and she traces her finger lightly over the frames or pushes them up to kiss the red spots they leave on the bridge of his nose.

She sticks close to him now, more than she ever did before. She prods him to tell her about what he's doing, and he's happy to comply. It's nice to have someone who listens without judging or telling him that he's going about things the wrong way. It's nicer to have her close.

She cradles his stubbled jaw when they kiss, plays with the edge of his waistcoat when she snuggles close to him, and always calls him Nick. There are still moments he catches her looking at him, barely breathing, and she'll excuse herself only to return minutes or hours later with a smile for him that doesn't quite reach her eyes, but those moments are becoming less frequent by the week.

Before she looked for ways that he and her husband were the same; now she concentrates on how they're different. The glasses help, but now they're broken, the frames too mangled for him to bother with fixing right now when there's so much else that needs to be done. This can't be his priority, no matter how afraid he is to face her without them. She needs the help, and he needs her to see _him_.

She walks in as he's cursing over them, her hand resting on his shoulder as she leans around him to see what he's doing. "What happened, sweetheart?" she murmurs, and he freezes.

_Sweetheart_. Not Nick or Rush or love or Rum or anything else she's ever called him. This is an endearment that belongs to him alone. An endearment, he realizes as he looks into her worried eyes, that she _means_.

"Broke the damn things again," he mutters. He's searching her face for any sign of the sadness he sees too often or the pity he's constantly afraid he'll see. Instead, he's greeted with concern and affection.

Belle makes a sympathetic noise and brushes a quick kiss against his lips. "You'll have to take more breaks," she cautions, "You know you get headaches without them."

He nods dumbly, and she kisses him again before retrieving her notebook and setting to work translating the most recent Ancient writings they found. He has a thousand things to do- a thousand and one now that his glasses are broken. Instead he moves to sit at her feet, resting his head against her knee.

Belle makes an inquisitive noise, not looking away from her work as she moves to stroke his hair. "You okay, sweetheart?"

He needs a pet name for her, something like princess or angel or treasure, something that will tell her how much she means to him without him actually having to say it. Maybe it's not love for her, not yet, but he's _sweetheart_ even when she's distracted, and that's more than he ever expected to have.

He kisses her leg through her jeans and sighs. "I am now."


End file.
